The Grass is Always Greener
by icbiwf
Summary: No matter what happens, people always want what they don't have. AU - Prim and Peeta aren't reaped, but that doesn't necessarily mean things are any better. Everlark, no matter what FFn's character sorting says.
1. 74

_This is the first chapter of a canon-divergent AU story originally written for Round 4 of Prompts in Panem, inspired by the sin of Envy. This story will be seven chapters, with each chapter covering events surrounding that year's Hunger Games. _

…..

74.

Gale knocked on the heavy wooden door at the back of the bakery. The front of the shop was still dark, but he knew the baker was usually up and working by this time of the morning. Especially on this morning.

Sure enough, a moment later the door opened to reveal a squat, broad-shouldered man with thinning blond hair. "Oh, I wasn't expecting you this morning," Mr. Mellark said.

"I have a squirrel," Gale said. "I was hoping to trade for a couple of rolls."

"Well, we haven't made any rolls yet this morning," the baker replied. "How about a fresh loaf instead?"

Gale tried to contain his surprise. He usually only traded for day-old loaves, and even then they cost more than just a squirrel. "That's fine," he said as neutrally as he could manage.

The older man turned back into the bakery. "Peeta!" he called. "Bring me one of those loaves!"

Gale looked past the baker, and could see one of his sons - Peeta, he assumed - just taking a tray of bread loaves out of one of the ovens. "Okay, Dad," the boy called back.

Gale watched the younger boy, and he felt his face redden. Gale spent his whole life hunting and trapping and scraping and struggling just to feed himself and his family, meanwhile this kid had everything handed to him. As he carried the tray from the oven to a work table, he held in his arms enough bread to feed Gale's family for a week. Maybe two. And it was just the barest beginning of how much food this kitchen would turn out today. And the shop was only open for half the day today.

Gale couldn't help but envy the stocky, well-fed youth. The baker's son had grown up literally surrounded by food. He had probably never been hungry one moment in his life. Surrounded by not only abundant fresh bread, but also fine pastries, decadent cakes, even fresh meat, delivered straight to his door by people far more deserving than him. He didn't have any idea how good he had it, having everything handed to him his whole life. _I'd like to see him deal with just one day not being surrounded by fresh food,_ Gale thought bitterly.

Oblivious to Gale's dark thoughts, the kid walked over to the door with a paper bag containing the fresh loaf of bread, and handed it over to Gale. "Here you go," he said with a smile on his face. Gale scowled at him and snatched the bag away. He thought he saw Peeta's smile falter a bit, but before he could be sure the boy was turned away, returning to his work in the kitchen.

Gale took a quick glance at the loaf in the bag before handing the squirrel over to the older man, and with a brief nod he turned to leave. After just a few steps, though, the baker's voice stopped him. "Good luck today."

Gale turned back to the old man. He said nothing in reply, giving only another nod before leaving once again.

As he made his way towards the woods to meet up with Katniss, he felt his momentary rage settle down into the general low-level anger he felt so often. He had to trade with merchants to sustain his family, but every time he got a glimpse into their well-fed lives, it only fed his anger. The unfairness and inequality ate at him. It hardened his resolve to leave. To just drop everything and run away into the woods. They could do it, him and Catnip together, they could live out in the woods and feed themselves and leave all this bullshit behind. Then they'd finally be free, free to be together and free to have a family.

And unless he didn't really know her at all, Catnip would be as excited about that as he was.

...

74.

The square was steadily emptying, everyone was heading home, but Peeta remained rooted in his spot. He couldn't bring himself to move. He felt like the whole world had tipped over on its side, and he didn't know how to operate in this new reality. He barely knew how to breathe, let alone how to move.

He knew his position wasn't unique. There was at least one other family going through the same thing right now, and countless others had done it before. How did they do it? How did they go on?

A particular bit of movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. After thinking about it for a moment, he managed to turn his head, and found the familiar sight of Katniss Everdeen. She was headed home, of course, together with her sister, Prim.

Her sister. Going home. Going home with her sister.

Peeta had felt a lot of different things in relation to Katniss Everdeen over the years. But today, for the first time, he felt envy. He hated himself for it, but he couldn't deny it, and he couldn't bring himself to fight it. For the first time, he was jealous of Katniss. Because she was going home, _with_ her sister.

As if she could feel him staring at her, Katniss looked up, and suddenly they were staring each other in the eye across the square. Normally this was when he would turn away and pretend like he hadn't been looking, but right now he couldn't manage it. He just stared back at her, for the first time since the day after he'd thrown her the bread. The look on her face was curious. It wasn't pity, like he'd seen from so many others. It wasn't the nervous look of someone who didn't know how to deal with him in this moment. It was a look of genuine concern, genuine compassion, genuine sympathy, genuine caring. And somehow, seeing it, getting that look from Katniss Everdeen, he felt like he could breathe for the first time since Effie Trinket had announced the name.

He started when he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder. He looked up to see his brother Barlee. Barlee, who was too old for the reaping. Who was too old to volunteer. And suddenly Peeta felt jealous of him, too, because he wouldn't have to live with the guilt.

When he looked back across the square, Katniss was just barely within sight at the edge of the square, once again making her way home, her arm wrapped protectively around her precious sister.

"Come on, Peet," his brother said, squeezing his shoulder and pulling him towards the Justice Building. "Let's go say goodbye to Rye."

…..

_The next chapter will skip ahead to the 76__th__ Games, Katniss and Peeta's last reaping. If you're impatient to read more, the first two-and-a-half chapters of this story were posted as a submission to the latest round of Prompts in Panem. _


	2. 76

76.

Peeta looked up, and of course found Katniss looking at him.

She was standing with _him_, of course. She and Gale had been inseparable for many years now, and still he couldn't contain the pang of jealousy that coursed through him at the sight of the two of them together. But he did his best to push it aside, because for only the second time since their weird new routine had been established, she was actually meeting his gaze.

After Rye was reaped two years ago, Peeta had found himself the focus of hundreds of unwelcome stares, and one welcome one. More than once he had looked up to catch a pair of silver eyes, dark with sorrow, quickly flit away from him. It seemed the tables had turned, after so many years. Now she was the one surreptitiously watching him.

He still couldn't manage the nerve to actually speak to her, of course. At first he had been too broken up over Rye's death in the Games to do anything. Once he had finally been able to grieve and try to live again, it felt like too much time had passed. They had already fallen into this new routine. They never spoke, they never even met each other's gaze, except once. At the next reaping, they had caught each other's eye while waiting in line to check in, and had not looked away. After a moment, they had exchanged small nods. Unspoken well wishes.

And now they were doing it again, as neither looked away from the other. Slowly, deliberately, Peeta nodded at Katniss. After a moment, she nodded back. A silent hope that they would both survive their final reaping.

After another moment, Gale stole her attention, wondering what she had been staring at. Peeta was sure to disappear into the crowd before Gale could follow her gaze.

…..

76.

_It's over._

Katniss rolled her eyes at the ridiculous thought. Of course it wasn't _over_. Prim had four more reapings to try to survive. Gale's brothers had more reapings to survive. Posy wouldn't even _begin_ the reaping for another six years.

But for Katniss, this small part of the struggle was over. She had survived her last reaping. Now she had to face the rest of her life.

As her final reaping had approached over the past few months, the prospect of planning for her life after had become more and more daunting. Currently all she had to do was attend school and hunt in every moment of her available time, but now that she was done with the reapings, that was all about to change. Soon school would be over, and she would be expected to have a trade or job of some sort. Most likely a job working in the coal mines along with nearly every other able-bodied adult from the Seam.

It's not like any of this came as a surprise. She had been mentally preparing herself to work in the mines for years now. But as her future in the mines had come closer and closer to reality, her mental state had deteriorated. She hadn't had a decent night's sleep in months, her dreams plagued not by horrible visions of the upcoming reaping, but of her life afterwards. Of mine explosions and tunnel collapses and elevator falls. Of pleading for her father to run before he was consumed by a disaster; of Prim pleading for her to do the same.

Eventually she'd had to admit to herself that she didn't think she could do it. Somehow Gale managed to consign himself to that black grave for twelve hours every day, but she didn't think she could do it without completely losing her mind. She wasn't strong enough. She hated to admit to any weakness, she hated feeling like she was no better than her mother, but her instinct for self-preservation was stronger than her pride. There was no way she could work at the mines.

Of course, she was the only one who was disappointed by this. Prim wanted her to train as a healer with their mother, or at least tell people she was while she continued to hunt. It would probably work, too; the Peacekeepers here in Twelve didn't care enough to call her bluff, not when they were some of her best customers. But Katniss was afraid that such an obvious lie would leave her too vulnerable to exposure. It would only take one grumpy Peacekeeper, or self-important busybody, to ruin everything.

Gale had his own solution. He wanted them to get married. It wasn't uncommon for only one member of a family to work in the mines while the other worked in the home; as Gale's wife she would be free to spend her days hunting without her lack of employment being conspicuous. Of course, while Gale presented this as purely a practical solution, she knew he wanted more. She knew he wanted a real marriage, with love, and sex, and children. Katniss wanted none of that. Not with Gale; not with anyone.

She looked across the square, and caught a particular set of blond heads heading back to town. This was Peeta Mellark's last reaping as well. Of course, he never had to even consider a job in the mines, or a marriage of convenience. Katniss wasn't normally one to join Gale in his anger at merchants for the crime of simply being merchants; and she knew that even among merchants, Peeta Mellark was one of the kindest people in Twelve. But in this moment she couldn't help but envy the boy with the bread. He would walk straight out of the reaping and into his job at the bakery. He would never fear for his life while at work. He was free to marry whichever town girl caught his fancy, and there were certainly more than a few who had their eye on the handsome baker's son.

For just a moment Katniss felt like she envied those girls, too. Living in a nice house in town. Training to work as a butcher or a tailor or a shoemaker, not a coal miner waiting for the roof to cave in, or a hunter waiting to be caught and flogged. Free to pursue relationships for want instead of for need. Free to pursue Peeta Mellark.

She quickly shook her head. What was she thinking? She had no interest in any of that. She didn't _want_ any relationship. And why had she thought of Peeta? It must have been just because he was already on her mind. Must have been. What a ridiculous idea, her and Peeta Mellark, in a relationship. As if either of them wanted _that_.

…..

_Next chapter: 78__th__ Games. And for people who have been waiting, the second half of Chapter 3 is the first new material that wasn't part of the original Prompts in Panem submission._


	3. 78

_For anyone who read the original TGiAG Prompts in Panem submission, about the middle of this chapter is the beginning of new material that wasn't part of that submission._

…..

78.

Katniss ran.

She didn't know where she was, except she was obviously still in District Twelve. She didn't know how long she'd been running. She didn't know how far she'd gone. She must have been running in circles, at least to an extent, otherwise she would have come to the district fence by now. She would have headed straight for the fence and fled into the woods if that had been an option, but the fence was always on during the Games these days. So she had no destination. She followed wherever her feet carried her. It was pouring rain, and she was barefoot, and her lungs ached with the effort it took to keep breathing, but she didn't let any of that stop her. She knew Gale would be out looking for her by now, beside himself with worry, but she spared him no consideration. She just ran.

The past two weeks had been their own special kind of hell. The reaping had been a nightmare come true, and she had never woken up. And now she never would.

She had been deluding herself into thinking that it would all be okay. She recognized that now. Delusions can feel good in the moment, delusions can help a person function for a short time. But ultimately delusions can not insulate a person from reality. Katniss's delusion had been shattered when she watched the burly Career boy from District Four choke the life out of her precious Prim, while Claudius Templesmith cackled at Prim's feeble attempts to pry his hands from her throat.

In that moment, Katniss found she couldn't deal with the absurdity her life had turned into. Pretending to be a healer. Pretending to be with Gale. Pretending that anything she had done in the previous decade had been worth a damn, now that the only person she was sure she loved would be sent home from the Capitol in a wooden box.

So she ran.

Eventually, she was forced to succumb to fatigue. Her muscles burned with exhaustion, her movements becoming weaker and clumsier by the minute. She was soaked through to the bone. Her feet were covered in innumerable small cuts. Finally she collapsed, unable to continue. After several minutes of lying motionless, panting for breath, she was able to drag herself over to a small tree, and pull herself up into a sitting position. It was many minutes more before she had recovered enough to lift her head and assess her surroundings.

No. It couldn't be. How could she be _here_, of all places? If she'd had the strength left to do so, she would have gotten up and left. Unfortunately she barely had the strength left to breathe. In the entirety of District Twelve, some unconscious instinct inside of her had directed her feet to this spot. To the same place she had been during another rainstorm eight years earlier, the last time she had felt as desperately lost as she did right now.

Katniss thought back to that girl, who had collapsed under this same tree, and she found that she actually envied her younger self. Yes she'd been starving and half dead, but she'd had a purpose. Her life made sense. What sense was there in her life now? She envied that young girl because she'd had Prim waiting for her at home. She wished Prim was home right now, even just so they could starve to death together. She envied her younger self even that, the opportunity to starve to death. It would be a welcome change from this world where she was alone.

As she thought of the girl who had nearly given up on life under this tree just over eight years ago, her thoughts turned to the boy who had saved her. The boy with the bread, who braved a beating from his witch of a mother to give her bread, and hope. What a waste. His efforts were a waste, the life he saved was a waste, because it had always been all about Prim. And Prim was gone.

She tried to contain the sobs that erupted from her soul, but she could not. She bit her fist and held her breath and told herself that it was just the rain that coursed in torrents down her face.

"Katniss?"

As if summoned by her thoughts, he appeared out of the storm.

The boy with the bread.

…..

78.

Peeta went through the motions of preparing loaves to rise overnight, but his mind wasn't on his task. He didn't notice the destruction surrounding him, even as he deftly stepped around battered steel and broken glass. As he mindlessly went about his tasks, his mind was distracted by the emptiness in his heart.

He had felt it like a kick in the gut when Prim Everdeen was reaped two weeks ago. Suddenly he was right where he had been four years earlier, watching them take Rye away.

The earth-shattering wail that had emanated from Katniss had broken his heart. For the first time in his life, he was actually thankful for Gale Hawthorne, who had practically tackled Katniss with a huge bear hug to prevent her from assaulting a Peacekeeper. Yet he still couldn't stop the bloom of envy he felt watching Katniss break down in another man's arms, beating her fists against him, begging Gale to release her, screaming her denials that this could really be happening into the stunned silence of the square.

His thoughts over the past two weeks had been a confusing jumble. Sorrow for what Katniss was going through, hope for Prim that maybe she had a chance to come home, the jealousy of Gale Hawthorne that never really went away, all interspersed with moments when he would get lost in his own memories of losing Rye to the Games.

Things had cleared up a bit earlier that afternoon, when Triton from District 4 had crushed Prim's windpipe. Seeing another child dead, seeing Prim Everdeen dead, it had sent him over the edge. His revulsion at having to witness such brutality. His mourning for an innocent girl who didn't deserve to die in terror. His sorrow for what Katniss was going through at that moment. His certainty that Gale Hawthorne's arms were there to comfort her, and also his lips.

What Peeta felt in that moment was powerless, completely and utterly powerless. He could spend years buying game and berries and cheese, trying his best to keep just one Seam family fed, but in the end he'd still had to watch mutely as Prim Everdeen's life was ended by some brute from the fishing district. He couldn't protect anyone, not with a handful of coins and a few loaves of bread. He couldn't even manage to exchange more than a look and a small nod with the girl he'd been in love with for fifteen years.

He had control of exactly one thing, the bakery, and when he lashed out he vented himself on the one thing he could control. Dishes were smashed, utensils went flying, glass was shattered, steel was dented. He threw an entire set of wooden cooking utensils into the fire of the ovens, pretty sure that he had been struck with each and every piece of the set at one time or another and sick of having to look at them every day. When he was done, he sat in the middle of the destruction for a long time, catching his breath and surveying the damage. It wasn't too bad, really. The steel mixing bowls and wooden implements didn't care how hard he threw them. Most of the breakable items were in the apartment upstairs, what his parents hadn't taken with them when they moved out last year. Peeta took several deep breaths, retrieved what he needed from the chaos he'd created, and set about preparing for the morning rush.

It was as he was waiting for the loaves to rise that he thought he heard a commotion from out back. At first he dismissed it, it wasn't uncommon for people to go digging through the bakery's trash bins, and he wasn't really in a mood to see anybody. But when the noise didn't go away, he decided to investigate.

As he peered out the back door, his vision obscured by the heavy rainfall, he couldn't help but cast his memory back to another night, another rainstorm, another commotion behind the bakery. The night he had completely humiliated himself, throwing two burnt loaves at Katniss like she was some kind of animal, not even daring to look at her for fear of the hurt he would see in her eyes at his insult.

He thought he heard someone cry out from over by the apple tree. The same apple tree. He didn't know if he was seeing memory or reality when he spied the woman collapsed at the tree's base. "Katniss?" he asked in disbelief.

Her clothes were soaked through, clinging to her and weighing her down. Absent was the leather jacket she was almost always wearing when he saw her in town. Her hair was in one braid instead of two. No, this was not the Katniss of his memory. When she looked up at him, when he saw the emptiness in her face that he remembered so well from the mirror four years earlier, he did the only thing he could do. He knew from experience that words were useless right now. He waited to see what Katniss would do, and when she did nothing but continue staring blankly, he walked over to the tree, and sat himself on the ground next to Katniss. He draped an arm over her shoulders and pulled her into an embrace. Katniss surprised herself by welcoming the gesture; she turned her head into his shoulder and abandoned herself to her grief.

The twilight had tapered into evening by the time her sobs eased. Finally she lifted her head to look at the man she'd let herself break down with. Gale had tried holding her like this in the time since the reaping, but his arms had never felt as warm or as comforting as Peeta's did now. She didn't want to feel like this, she didn't want to depend on anyone for anything, but she found she didn't have the will to reject his comfort right now.

Peeta opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything the sound of the rain falling was interrupted by a voice in the distance, calling Katniss's name. They exchanged a look; they both knew who would be in town looking for Katniss.

Peeta steeled himself, disappointed that his brief moment with Katniss was ending so soon, but he was unprepared for the look of panic on her face. "Katniss…?"

"I can't-" she stammered, unable to finish a thought. "I'm not ready- I can't go home yet- I can't see him right now-"

Peeta brought his hand to her jaw to still her mouth. "Do you want to come inside and dry off some?" he asked softly. Despite her earlier protests, he was still surprised when she nodded her head.

Katniss was unsteady on her feet when she tried to stand. Peeta helped her up, then wrapped an arm around her waist in case she fell again. Katniss mutely accepted the gesture, holding onto his waist in return and leaning into him for support as he guided her into the bakery. She didn't react to the destruction evident in the bakery kitchen; in truth, it actually set her at ease a bit. The kitchen looked like she felt. Peeta didn't offer any explanation, merely assisted her up the stairs to his apartment. He brought her through the living room into the unused bedroom, and once there retrieved several towels from the dresser. "There are clothes in the closet," he explained. "They're not your usual style, but they're dry, and they'll fit you a lot better than any of my stuff. Feel free to use whatever you want."

"Won't your girlfriend be upset that I'm wearing her clothes?" Katniss asked.

Peeta huffed out a small laugh. "I don't have a girlfriend, these are clothes my mother left here when my parents moved across town. And yes, she would be very upset to see you wearing them." With that he left to dry off and change clothes himself.

When Katniss emerged from the bedroom, dry and changed and her hair freshly braided, she found Peeta in the kitchen serving out tea and bread rolls. She opened her mouth to protest, but Peeta cut her off. "No, don't even try it. If you're going to be in my house, you're going to eat something." Katniss silently accepted a roll and a mug of tea.

They didn't speak again for a long time. They silently consumed an entire basket of rolls, and a pot of tea, and a box of broken cookies. Staring at the iced designs on the cookies, Katniss was reminded of the beautiful cakes Prim liked to admire in the bakery window.

"How do you do it?" she asked. "How do you go on when they're gone?"

Peeta sighed, then gave a small shrug. "I don't know. You just do," he said. "The pain never really goes away, it just sort of becomes part of you, until one day it feels normal to hurt that much. So normal that it stops crippling you, even if it never really stops hurting." He paused for a minute, but Katniss said nothing. "You must have done the same thing, when your father died," he said.

"I didn't let myself feel anything when my father died," she said. "I couldn't break down like my mother did, I had to take care of Prim." She ordinarily didn't talk about that time of her life, but she found herself opening up to Peeta. He had already seen her at her worst, both eight years ago and an hour ago. And there was just something about him - the softness in his expression, the lack of pity in his blue eyes - she knew he wouldn't judge her. And she knew that Peeta Mellark was one of the very few people in Twelve who really understood what she was experiencing, and the only one she trusted.

They talked sporadically throughout the night, short bits of conversation separated by long silences. They began by talking about their shared trauma of losing a sibling in the Games. Eventually they moved on to other topics. Peeta explained how his remaining brother had distanced himself from the bakery after Rye's death, eventually apprenticing at another shop, and the circumstances that lead to his parents moving to a house across town and leaving Peeta alone with the bakery. Eventually, Katniss even explained how she had been posing as Gale's girlfriend so that her joblessness wouldn't stand out.

"But I don't think I can do it anymore," she confessed. "Now it just seems so… silly. Like I've turned myself into something I'm not. I want to live as myself."

"So why don't you?" Peeta asked.

"Because I didn't think I could handle working in the mines, and they're the only ones who would hire me," she explained.

They were quiet for another while as Katniss reconsidered nearly every decision she had made since her last reaping two years earlier. A person's last reaping was a life-changing event, the true beginning of adulthood, when a person's life began to take the shape it would hold from then on. School ended, and people moved on to the jobs they would hold for the rest of their lives. Many people married soon after their last reaping, and almost everyone did within a few years.

Katniss could see now that what she had done was to try to prevent all of those changes. Her life as it was left much to be desired, she risked beatings or execution every day by hunting illegally and despite her best efforts her family was still rarely more than a step away from starvation. But the only thing she cared about was that she was able to take care of Prim. She had done so for many years, and she was terrified that any major change in her life would mean changing that as well. She refused to endanger Prim's future by acknowledging her own adulthood. So she pretended. She pretended that her life wasn't changing. She pretended to get along with her mother to avoid upsetting her sister. She pretended to apprentice with her mother to avoid having to work in the mines. She pretended to be in a relationship with Gale when that excuse had worn thin. She pretended that she wasn't being cruel to her best friend by making him fake a relationship he wanted so badly to be real. She pretended her whole life away, until the only real thing left in it was Prim.

So what was she left with now? She shook her head in sad acknowledgement of reality. She was left with nothing. Nothing. Prim was dead. The foundation she had built her life of lies around was gone, and she was left with nothing. A mother she had never really forgiven for abandoning her, who was now all too likely to do so again. A friendship that had been strained to the breaking point by faking something more, something more that he desperately wanted and she desperately didn't. Nothing.

"I don't know where to go now," she blurted out loud. She flushed in embarrassment, she hadn't meant to say that out loud. But something in her was letting her words flow more freely tonight. Maybe she was so bereft that she simply didn't have it in her to maintain the emotional walls she normally lived behind. Maybe her beloved sister's death had driven her completely mad, and that's why she found herself speaking so freely. She had never shared her true self with anyone after her father died, not with her mother who she felt alienated from and not with her sister who she had to protect and not with her friend who she wouldn't let herself appear weak in front of. Maybe she was finally discovering what a comfort it could be to open up to someone. Someone who understood. Someone who had been through a similar experience. Someone who she somehow knew would never judge her, or embarrass her, or be disappointed in her.

Someone who might have already found a place inside those emotional defenses, longer ago than she was ready to admit.

Whatever the reason, however new and unfamiliar the experience, she found herself unburdening herself to Peeta Mellark. "I don't think I can face that house, not with Prim gone, and my mother… And Gale, I don't even know what to say to him now. How do I break off a relationship that was never real to begin with? How do I tell him that without breaking his heart?"

"You can stay here, if you want." Peeta faltered when Katniss whipped her head up to face him and he saw the shock on her face, but he pressed on. "I have the extra bedroom, you can stay in there as long as you like." Katniss said nothing in response, she just kept staring at him, as if she didn't quite believe she had heard him correctly. With nothing to lose, Peeta voiced his next thought without taking the time to think about it. "And if you're worried about finding a job, um, well, you could work here. It's just me running the place right now, I could use some help."

Katniss's mouth opened and closed several times before she gained her voice. "I can't bake."

"I can teach you," Peeta said. "Or you can work the front of the shop."

"Yeah, that's a great idea," she scoffed. "I'd drive away all your business."

"Katniss, this is the only bakery in Twelve. Where are they going to go?" he joked. "Even if all you do is clean up a little, it would still be a huge help."

Katniss shook her head, and asked the question that was really on her mind. "Peeta, why are you always helping me?"

Peeta stopped and thought for a moment. He raked a hand through his blond curls, and gave her a weak grin. "Do you want the safe answer?"

"I want the real answer," she said with conviction.

Peeta nodded. He let out a breath before he began speaking. "Well, the truth is that I had a huge crush on you when we were in school."

Katniss felt her jaw drop open. She didn't know how to respond to that. "Do you remember our first day?" Peeta asked.

Katniss was incredulous. "What, when we were _five?_"

Peeta nodded in confirmation. "That day, you sang the valley song in front of the music assembly. You were fearless, walking right up to the front of the class. And your voice, I swear it's the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. I was a goner as soon as I heard you sing."

Katniss stopped to think for a moment, taking the time to reassure herself that she really did want the answer to her next question. "And when did your five-year-old crush go away?"

Peeta wouldn't look at her as he answered. "It didn't."

They were quiet as they each paused to let Peeta's confession sink in. This was a subject she had always sidestepped and shied away from whenever Gale brought it up, and her instinct was to do the same now. But taking that approach with Gale had lead her to where she was now, hiding from him with a man she had never spoken to before tonight. So she decided to go against her gut and confront the subject directly.

"I don't want to string you along too," she said bluntly. "I know I've hurt Gale, I don't want to do that to anyone else."

"That's not why I'm doing this," Peeta said. "I'm not asking you for anything like that. I don't want… I'm not trying to coerce you into anything. I just want to help. If that's what you need, a job and someplace to stay for a while, I can offer that much. Please, let me help."

Katniss considered his offer for just a moment. She never accepted help from people, never accepted anything that she didn't know for sure she could pay back. It took her years of working together before she stopped haggling every trade with Gale.

But that wasn't really an option when it came to Peeta. She already owed him her life, a debt she would certainly never have the opportunity to repay. She used to harbor fantasies that Peeta would contract an illness that could only be cured with herbs from the woods, and she could finally relieve the burden of her debt, but realistically there was never going to be a time when Peeta's survival depended on her.

If she was honest with herself, that was the real reason she never thanked Peeta for that bread; she couldn't face him because of the burden of the debt she didn't know how to pay off. But now, somehow that debt didn't feel as important. In the face of what they had both lost, of what importance was one debt? Given how fragile life was in District 12, should she really deprive herself of Peeta's friendship just because she would always owe him? And what of his new offer, the offer of escape. Not escape from the district like Gale would sometimes delude himself into considering. But escape from a house without Prim. Escape from the tortured, ruined thing her friendship with Gale had become. Escape from what her life had degenerated into. What if she did accept his offer? What was one more debt when she already owed him more than she could ever hope to repay?

"Okay," she told him. "I'll allow it." Peeta allowed himself a small smile at her acquiescence, and Katniss found herself returning it. For the first time since she saw Prim die, she got the feeling that maybe she could face her future.

…..

_Next chapter: 80__th__ Games._


	4. 80

80.

Gale ran towards the town. The town was an inferno, the flames seeming to grow by the second, but that only made him run harder. He could practically feel time running out.

He had known the moment the television screen went dark that something bad was about to happen. Somehow he just knew. There had always been rumblings of rebellion in the mines, but it was limited to talk. Nobody in Twelve was willing to risk their precarious existence on open revolt. But someone, somewhere, obviously was. Gale was sure of it the moment the power died. The idea elated him, but he also knew it wasn't safe in District 12 anymore. He and his family were already leaving when fire began raining from the sky. He left Rory with the job of retrieving Mrs. Everdeen and taking everyone out of the district, and took off running for the town, his only thought that he had to get to Katniss before it was too late. Once again, her insistence on staying in town with that damned baker was ruining everything.

That last thought was motivated entirely by practical concerns and not at all by jealousy, he struggled to reassure himself.

Everything was happening too fast. The fire was spreading too fast, the flames were growing too fast. Everything was going up like a tinderbox, fueled by decades of coal dust ground into every surface. He had to change his route several times, as the usual paths were cut off by huge craters left behind by bomb detonations, or by walls of flame. He was beginning to despair of ever finding a clear path to the bakery, when he thought he heard her voice. He looked around, seeing nothing, when suddenly just a hundred feet in front of him he saw a large body burst through the flames and collapse to the ground. A moment later a much smaller body came through as well, a body whose movements and posture were nearly as familiar to him as his own.

"Catnip!" he called out, but she didn't hear him. He ran over as Katniss struggled to drag Peeta away from the flames. As he approached, he could see that they were both in pretty bad shape. Katniss had a nasty burn on the outside of her thigh that was red and oozing, and welts on the palms of both hands that she paid no mind to as she knelt by Peeta's supine form and patted out flames that had caught on his clothing. Peeta made no move to get up; his lower leg had been mangled somehow, and as Gale got closer he could see that Katniss had used a torn shirt twisted around a rolling pin to cut off blood flow to the wound, an emergency medical dressing he himself had learned about when he started working in the mines. The miners taught it to each other in case of an accident; it had saved the life of a woman named Ripper many years ago, though it cost her her arm.

Gale knelt opposite Katniss on Peeta's other side and finally got her attention. When she looked up at him, her eyes held a crazed, feral look he hadn't seen since Prim was reaped. "Help me," she pleaded. "I can't carry him, he's too heavy."

For just a moment, the familiar jealousy that always accompanied any thoughts of Katniss and the baker consumed him. He knew they had only a friendly relationship, but he lived in constant worry that it would grow into more over time. At first he had hoped Peeta would try something and scare Katniss away. As the years had passed, he grew to fear the idea of Peeta trying something, afraid that Katniss would be receptive.

But he knew there was no time for his jealousy right now, not when all their lives were at stake. He hauled Peeta up onto his good leg and threw one of the injured man's arms over his shoulders. Katniss moved to Peeta's other side to offer what support she could, but it was slow going. Two people of such different heights were ill equipped to help a man along, and the herky-jerky motion was causing Peeta intense pain in his injured leg. The second time they dropped him, Peeta decided it was enough.

"We'll never make it at this rate," he told the others.

Gale had come to the same conclusion, but had been reluctant to voice it, and he was glad of his restraint when he saw the angry look on Katniss's face. "Shut up, Peeta. We're trying to save you, dammit!"

"Katniss, you have to leave me behind," he said far too calmly for an injured man asking to die. "It's the only way you or Gale can survive."

Katniss shook her head in denial. "No…"

"Katniss, please," Peeta begged. "Don't die for me. You won't be doing me any favors."

"I won't just leave you behind!" she said.

"Your family needs you, Katniss," Peeta said. "Your mother needs you. Gale needs you. No one really needs me."

For just a moment, Gale felt his heart soar at the fact that Peeta has casually included him as part of Katniss's family. But as much as Peeta had just renewed his hope of rebuilding his relationship with Katniss, a moment later Katniss shattered it.

"I do," she said emphatically. "I need you." Peeta shook his head, and opened his mouth to say something, but Katniss stopped his lips with her fingertips. "They've taken so much from us already," she said. She moved her hand from his mouth to take his hands in hers. "Don't let them take you from me."

Peeta shook his head again. "No, I don't want to…"

"Stay with me," Katniss cut him off.

Peeta seemed to be wavering, warring with himself over his response, when a loud crash from nearby spurred Gale to action. "We're wasting time," he said, ignoring his broken heart. No matter what he was feeling, he had a very great desire to live long enough to feel it. He took Peeta's hands from Katniss and used them to pull Peeta up into a sitting position, then back up onto his good leg. "Sorry about this, baker boy, it won't be very pleasant for you." He grabbed Peeta around the waist and hauled him up and over his shoulder like he was a large pack of tools.

"Can you carry him very far?" Katniss asked timidly as she stood.

"Far enough," Gale grunted. "Let's go."

…..

80.

It was strange watching her mother work. It always had been. Even in the good years before her father died, her mother became a different person when she was working on patients. Stronger. More focused. More efficient. And even as she changed through the years, even after she lost first a husband and later a daughter, this person she became in the presence of illness or injury had never really changed.

These thoughts occupied Katniss as she watched her mother treat the refugees from what used to be District 12. Broken bones were set, cuts were stitched, and of course burns were bandaged. Katniss herself had a large bandage wrapped around her thigh. Thankfully most injuries were rather minor; it seemed that anyone with more serious injuries never made it out of the district.

Except for one, of course.

They had made camp at her father's lake; part of Katniss resented having all these people at what she had long thought of as a private place, but when they fled into the woods she hadn't been able to think of any better destination. The lake offered clean water, good food sources, and it was far enough from the district to be safe without being too far of a hike. At first Katniss tried to assist her mother with treating people, but found that regardless of being only other person there with any medical knowledge, she was singularly unsuited for the task as she always had been. Soon she was replaced by Delly Cartwright, a friend of Peeta's who was one of the few survivors form town. She shared Peeta's empathy and compassion and was instantly more of a help than Katniss could be even after a lifetime of watching her mother and sister at work. Katniss's role was reduced to retrieving requested plants and herbs from the woods around them.

They had left their most difficult patient for last. It was almost midday when they all finally gathered by Peeta's side. He lay stretched across the hearth in the little concrete house by the lake's edge, oblivious to the world around him after being dosed with almost half their remaining supply of sleep syrup. Filling the small structure were not only Katniss, her mother, and Delly, but also Gale and his mining crewmate Thom, who seemed to have some sort of prior relationship with Delly that Katniss didn't feel like taking the time to unravel just then.

Mrs. Everdeen gave Peeta's mangled leg one last look, and sadly shook her head as she stood. "It's no use, there's nothing we can do."

A part of Katniss knew her mother's diagnosis had been inevitable, but still she rebelled against it. "There has to be something. The fires have died down, maybe we can get something from the district-"

"That won't do any good, Katniss," her mother said. "If we had a hospital, a real hospital like they have in the Capitol, and we had gotten him there last night, then maybe they could have done something. But now it's too late for even that." She gestured to the injured limb. "Peeta's leg is _rotting_, Katniss, you know that as well as I do. The only thing protecting him from blood poisoning is that tourniquet. We have no choice but to amputate."

"What do you mean we have no choice!" Katniss screamed. "Of course we do! We can't just chop off his leg! He isn't even awake! Who are you, anyway, to decide this for him!"

Peeta began stirring in his drug-induced sleep. He tried to move his leg, as Mrs. Everdeen and Delly moved to hold him in place. "Take her out," Mrs. Everdeen ordered. Gale and Thom had to literally carry Katniss out the door while she shouted obscenities at her mother. At Gale's direction, they brought her down to the lakeshore a bit away from the house, and held her there until her fight gave out and dissolved into sobs.

When Katniss eventually calmed herself, Thom had left, and she was alone with Gale. He gave her some food he had gathered, some nuts and berries and katniss tubers roasted over a fire. They ate in silence until Katniss spoke up. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Gale said. "After last night I think we all need a breakdown."

"No, Gale-" she paused, unsure how to explain herself, but she felt like she had to say this now. "I'm sorry I hurt you."

Gale stared at her intently for half a minute, then shifted his gaze to look out over the water. "I never stood a chance, did I?"

Katniss didn't answer directly. "I never wanted the same things you did." They had discussed it since they were kids, really. His desire to marry and have children. "I tried to. I wanted to. It would have been so much easier if I did. But I just couldn't."

"And now?" Gale asked. "With him?"

"I don't know," she answered honestly. "I know what everyone thinks, but it's never been like that between us. We've never even discussed it, really." She left out the one time they had discussed it, the night Prim died when Peeta had confessed to having feelings for her. Gale didn't need to know about that, and besides Peeta himself hadn't mentioned it again in the years since. "It's just, last night… If he died, I don't know what I'd do." She shook her head in disbelief, shocked at her words even as she was saying them. "I can't lose him."

They didn't speak again until Delly came to them. "We're done," she said simply. "You can go see him if you want."

Katniss looked quickly to Gale. "Go on," he said. "You should be there when he wakes up."

Katniss flashed him a quick smile, and moved quickly to return to the house. Inside, Peeta hadn't moved. His leg ended with a large bandage just above where his knee used to be. Katniss looked away from that quickly. She sat on the floor by the hearth, facing Peeta's head, with his leg hidden behind her. Alone with Peeta for the first time since Gale had found them the night before, she took his hand and held it tightly in both of hers, pretending not to let her fingertips wander to check his pulse every so often.

He looked younger with his features relaxed in sleep; in the dim light from the windows it was easy to see the boy he used to be. The boy with the bread, who had braved his mother's cruel punishment to throw her that crucial sustenance. She let her fingers wander to his face, tracing the outline of the swollen bruise that had been on his cheek the next day at school. The eye that had been blackened. She brushed some of his unruly blond hair out of his face. She gently ran the pads of her fingers across his forehead. Down the side of his face. Along the stubble covering his jaw.

Would things have been different if she had talked to him that day? What could they have been, a starving Seam girl whose father was dead and a popular town boy whose mother beat him? Would they have been friends? Could they have been more? Would she have wanted different things from life if she had had someone she wanted them with?

For just a moment, she pictured this alternate Katniss and Peeta. Friends as kids, growing into teenagers together. Supporting each other through the reapings. Helping ease the pain of an abusive mother, or one who was mentally absent. She would have met Rye in person, and been there for Peeta when he was reaped. Peeta and Prim would get along better than any two people she could imagine, she was sure of it, and he would have been as devastated by her death as Katniss was herself.

She couldn't help but envy this alternate Katniss, who grew from a child to an adult with Peeta as a constant presence in her life. She had no doubt that the alternate Katniss was a better person than the real one had turned out to be.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. She lifted Peeta's hand from her lap and pressed it to her lips. "I wasted so much time. It was almost too much time." She felt tears escaping her eyes, and furiously brushed them away with her free hand. "I won't waste any more," she promised, as much to herself as to Peeta.

She didn't remember falling asleep, but she woke with a start when someone jostled her shoulder. She realized she was leaned awkwardly over Peeta's sleeping form, and groaned at the stiffness in her back as she sat up.

She looked up to find her mother examining Peeta's leg. "I just need to check the wound and put on a fresh bandage," the older woman explained. Katniss just nodded in reply.

Katniss took a moment to admire the way her mother went about her job. The skin around Peeta's new stump didn't even look irritated. And where had she managed to find a needle to stitch the wound closed? Or a saw to cut the bone, for that matter? Operating in conditions like this made her usual scrounging for instruments in the Seam look easy, but somehow she had managed, just like always. Peeta was lucky she was here among their little group of survivors. They all were. Katniss knew there were more people than just Peeta who wouldn't even be amongst the survivors if nor for her mother's efforts overnight.

"I'm sorry," Katniss said. "About screaming at you before."

Mrs. Everdeen waved off her apology. "I've heard worse," she said. "You've seen how people are, when someone they love is in pain."

Someone they love. The words crashed against Katniss's psyche. That's what she had been thinking about earlier, wasn't it? She had never thought to put the name to it, but there was no other word that fit. Wanting a life with Peeta. Wanting the kind of life with him that Gale had always wanted with her. Feeling bereft at the idea of losing him. That was the feeling that she hadn't realized she'd been refusing to name. That was love.

"Yeah," was all she said out loud. Soon enough her mother finished her work and she was once again left alone with Peeta. And her thoughts.

It was growing dark again when she felt Peeta's hand twitch in hers. She looked up to see his eyes flutter open, just slightly. "Hey," he grunted.

"Hey," she replied around the lump in her throat.

"You stayed," he said.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said. "And that means you can't either."

"Never crossed my mind," he got out before drifting off again.

Later on, he would think that he'd dreamed the smile on her face.

…..

_Here's the huge cliffhanger for the next chapter: How will I count the years now that the rebellion is beginning and there presumably won't be any more Games?_


End file.
